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In Australia "Liberal" is Right-Wing Neo-Cons; economically liberal, socially repressive, tax the poor to subsidise the rich. Republican is also a good thing, as opposed to being a lackey of the British monarchy.

Jenny Macklin’s comment – time to get outraged?

As of the New Year, single parents on government single parent payments are transferred to the Newstart Allowance once their child turns 8. This is to encourage parents to get a job.

Apparently children raise themselves when they hit 8.

Minister Jenny Macklin was asked could she live on Newstart allowance, her answer “I could”.

The Newstart allowance equals $35 a day, her current wage is $903 a day.

She wouldn’t be retiring to play golf, read books, and eat the $10 lunch special down the local RSL, she would be required to raise a child or children, go out to job interviews, undertake any training the job agencies tell her.

The same job agencies that have the power to report people for not attending enough job interviews, and so they lose their $35 a day, have as it turns out been stealing money from the government:

the Catholic Church’s employment arm, Local Employment & Training Solutions, was systematically falsifying its claims for fees from Job Services Australia…
Kate Ellis, “We…have reclaimed around $6.4 million in the past 12 months,” she said. Her office said the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations had two cases before the courts.Source: Former staff accuse agency of rorting jobs scheme

There is a start, Minister, if you want to save some money on the budget, stop the rorts from job agencies, many of them religious based (and pay little to no tax) and many are foreign-owned and are shipping profits overseas.

Although the idea of for-profit, foreign-owned, private companies raking in millions of rorted taxpayer money to provide job-seeking services should be a bigger outrage than any comment from the Minister.

Jenny Macklin, the minister in charge of overseeing the shift from parenting payments to Newstart allowance has said “The more people going back to work the better. It’s better for the family, it’s great to see mum and/or dad going … to work. Unfortunately we have far too many children growing up in families where nobody is working.” Source: here

Maybe the Minister misses the whole parenting part of the payment.

Maybe the Minister also misses the implication in her comment “nobody is working”. Yes, every single-parent I know sits at home all day eating chocolates and watching The Bold And The Beautiful.

Single parents do work, they raise their children, if that is not enough, they might do volunteer work at their child’s school, during school hours, they might also have elderly parents to take care of, or study part-time.

this outrage is ideologically driven, and has very little to do with concern for the parents of school-aged children

Jobs these days don’t allow people to take off just before school finishes – a legacy of workchoices was the belief that bosses do not have to make family-friendly work hours. You work or you are fired.

The growth in part-time, non-permanent, contract jobs is seen as an economy that is working. Part-time work is not stable, not high-paying, and comes with very few benefits, such as the ability to get sick and still have a job to come to the next day. This is the growth of the flexible work.

“Flexible” is neo-conservative code for: We, the bosses, have more flexibility to fire you, or make you work at midnight for no overtime pay, or make you come to work with a minutes notice.

Hey, single parents you’re on Newstart, get a job! Good luck finding one that fits around school hours, or finding child care or after school activities that won’t eat up all of your wage.

I might believe people cared about single parents if they had been as outraged at the Liberal party for their non-support of the Back To School Bonus. But they weren’t. NO! However, they were outraged at the idea that wealthy people should have their Baby Bonus means tested.

This suggests that this outrage is ideologically driven, and has very little to do with concern for the parents of school-aged children.

Let’s all vote for the Liberal party to show our outrage – because you know how well they will look after the poorest members of our community.

Although, just how much of the outrage is because people genuinely care about the plight of single parents, and how much is anti-ALP free kicks?…. and how much is this a distraction from Ashby and various members of the Liberal party trying to overthrow the government?

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2 Comments to “Jenny Macklin’s comment – time to get outraged?”

“It” probably is being used by MSM to distract from AShbyetcGate, but the Minister did say what we all know was silly and wrong, and very out of touch. She provided the gift and in doing so revealed a mindset that should be challenged and opposed by the Left, both from within the ALP and from without. We can maintain the struggle for a full and open enquiry into AsbyetcGate, and tackle these other issues at the same time.

Much like the Prime Minister falling over being the biggest issue in Australian politics last year, not plain packaging, not That Speech, not NDIS or the Murray Darling plan or carbon pricing, not even the failed coup. Youre right, Macklin gave her detractors and the Government detractors a gift, but it says a lot about the current state of media that this has been more discussed in Old Media in one week, than all the words about the Ashby judgement since it was handed down.